


let this hold you down

by RaisingCaiin



Series: RC's Back to Middle-earth Month 2020 [4]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Dark, Dark Past, Gen, Gravedigging, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mablung is angry and I don't blame him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:20:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23110858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaisingCaiin/pseuds/RaisingCaiin
Summary: There is some debate among Mablung's rangers, whether it would be more meet to dig a grave or build a pyre for Turambar, as they do not know which is more the custom of Men.After all that the Man had done, though, Mablung knows that Turambar deserves neither. It is only in memory of a friend long lost that the warden of Doriath orders them to dig at all.(for the B2MeM prompt 3/7/2020:Create a fanwork that is set in the aftermath of a disaster, either natural or human-caused.)
Relationships: (IMPLIED), Beleg Cúthalion & Mablung of Doriath, Beleg Cúthalion/Túrin Turambar
Series: RC's Back to Middle-earth Month 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1653583
Comments: 10
Kudos: 29
Collections: Back to Middle-earth Month 2020: Endings and Beginnings





	let this hold you down

There is some debate among Mablung's rangers, whether it would be more meet to dig a grave or build a pyre for Turambar, as they do not know which is more the custom of Men. As they squabble, an intrusive thought rears its ugly head, urging Mablung to say that they may as well simply cast the corpse over the rocks and down into the gorge below. After all, that is what became of both Saeros and Niniel when their fates intersected with Turambar's, is it not? And no, Mablung was no friend of Saeros and no especial ally of Niniel, but he certainly has more than enough reason to hate Turambar. 

The Man had turned Beleg's head, and in doing so, killed him. The Man had walked into Nargothrond, and a dragon followed him, killing Finduilas and countless others. Turambar has damned so many that a resting place at the bottom of a gorge where at least the carrion crows can gain something from him seems the least of Mablung's concerns now. And where was Beleg's body lain, after all? Neither Turambar nor Gwindor had ever deigned to say, even to him!

But Mablung kicks the ugly thought down. For Beleg, if no one else, Mablung will see Turambar buried in honor – an honor he does not deserve, no, but an honor that Beleg would have liked to see given his lover.

"Dig a grave," Mablung tells his men gruffly, decision made. The coldness of his tone dares them to protest, and so they do not even grumble.

They dig a grave for Turambar in the shade of a young willow, further downstream. If his spirit lingers here, it can sit upon the river-rocks of the cairn they will build him, and from its seat it can look out upon the rolling hills, the sunlit forest, the laughing river in all its frothing rush.

Turambar himself looks strangely peaceful too, when they have pulled the blade from his heart and begun to compose his body for its consignment. There will be no mending the gaping hole pierced through his chest or washing out the deep dark bloodstains dried upon his tunic, but Mablung bids them wash his face and neaten his hair, tuck his cloak about his shoulders and fold his hands above his punctured heart.

 _For Beleg,_ he tells himself silently, watching them work.

 _For Beleg._ A truer friend than any other Mablung had ever known, and a better creature than anyone, let alone Turambar, could ever have deserved.

As they lower Turambar into the grave they have dug for him, Anglachel catches Mablung's eye. No, Anglachel no more but Gurthang, he has heard it is called now. Not that the name matters in the slightest, for Mablung has always hated that sword. From the second that Thingol had had the cursed black blade drawn from his armories and presented to Beleg as a gift that would help him seek Thingol's wayward foster-son, Mablung has decried the sorcerous thing; and to know that Turambar had kept it, reforged it even, after it had taken Beleg's life, leaves Mablung curling his hand into a fist and stalking over to take it up, the first time that he has ever touched the damned thing.

Anglachel-Gurthang hums in his hand. He is seized with the sudden need to drive it through Turambar's chest again, dead though the Man is, and let it drink further of what stilled blood might yet lie beneath that folded green cloak.

"A cairn," he orders his men, when they look askance at him holding the infamous black blade. "To warn others away."

Or perhaps to keep Turambar sealed away from any who make pilgrimages to his death-site, venerating him and making him into something that he is not, was not, never would be. Mablung will not have this, for although Turambar may have slain a dragon, Mablung cannot forgive him for the other he slew with this same blade.

A friend. A lover. A good man, who should have had the rest of the lifetime of the world before him. 

But although they follow his every other order, his men will not hear of leaving the place unmarked. _TÚRIN TURAMBAR DAGNIR GLAURUNGA_ , they inscribe upon the far-most stone: Túrin Turambar, Conqueror of Fate, Slayer of Glaurung. Anglachel-Gurthang vibrates in his hand as he reads the ill-scratched words, and Mablung can feel its thirst, still unquenched even after drinking of Beleg, and countless orcs, and the dragon, and finally of Turambar himself.

So many lives lost and Mablung cannot even fault the blade, for what is a weapon without the hand that wields it?

And so, before they before they leave Turambar to rot until he walks again in combat against the Moringotto, Mablung plants Anglachel-Gurthang point-first into the rocks about the dead Man's heart.

May it be the first thing he sees when he wakes again, Mablung thinks viciously. May Túrin Turambar never escape, in life or death or whatever lies between them for Men, the knowledge of what evil he has wrought.


End file.
